I remember when I was in high school and Indiana changed its license plate to include the phrase “Amber Waves of Grain”. It pissed people off. I mean, really pissed people off. Because in Indiana, we grow corn and soybeans, not wheat. While technically corn is a grain, it’s not amber. While the phrase was poetic, it just did not speak of “home” to the people of the Hoosier State. That’s kind of how I feel about Lughnasadh.

REBLOGGED fro Queer Creatures: After hours staring at the computer screen, all that my agonizing has produced is another blank page. The Queer Deities Project has been on my mind for a while. I want it to be perfect. I want it t…

Set’s day was one of finding my passion in my work once more, while realizing the things I would have to cut out or away in order to succeed.

Aset is a determined, disciplined Queen who helps the world move through successions. I will need to be determined as ever if I’m to get through the next 6 months. I’ll also need some healing…no sacrifice, cutting away, and intense passion comes without a drain in energy.

This day, Aset’s birthday, felt very special to me. She was the first Netjeru that came to me, and my relationship with her has changed over the year. It is now at its most complex, but also at, what I think, is its most genuine. I see her in myself, in strong women, in rain, and in green plants. Maker of Kings, may we all become Kings.

If yesterday’s theme was that of confidence, strategy, and diplomacy, today’s theme, for me, was that of sacrifice.

Today is also Lammas, and I did something of a slight “combo” – capitalizing on Wesir’s role as Lord of Grain to celebrate Wesir’s birth and Lammas together. It was a little odd to celebrate his birth on one hand while acknowledging the fact that he dies and is established as King in the Duat eventually in the same day…but for this moment in my life, it works. Especially given the fact that in my neck of the woods, it still is and feels very much like late summer. Its unfathomably hot and humid. Everything is crazy green…but my cucumbers are coming along swell, and other people have already harvested plenty of tomatoes. Its the peak of life for many critters and plants, and the harvests have been arriving for a while in this temperate zone.

But, the days are shortening, and the summer fruits will soon give way to their autumnal cousins. Wesir is the certainly the god of life, but there’s also a foreboding reminder playing in the background…the memory that life and death are cycles, not static states. The process of one giving way to the other. The promise of bread in a field of ripening wheat.

I am a few months away from a huge comprehensive exam, one that requires memories numerous citations and article summaries in order to create a handful of essays over the span of 6, 8-hour days. If Heru-Wer pressed me to believe in my ability to do it, Wesir pressed me to sacrifice. Specifically, the sacrifice in my time (and, honestly, at least a little bit if not more of my well-being) and efforts to studying is due. On top of everything else I have, I am to spend about 5 hours a day, each day, until mid-November studying for this exam. Its a tall order on top of a 40+ hour work week, but its got to be done.

Year in and year out, as I see it, Wesir sacrifices himself for all of us. Plants and crops are planted, sprout, bloom, and ripen their fruits, simply to sacrifice those fruits, seemingly, to other animals for food, or the ground. But that sacrifice is not for naught, because it perpetuates the species or feeds other species. Wesir was established as King of the Duat, and in the mythology, this meant “a place for the Akhu”. It meant the King (and eventually, anyone else) could live like him. I don’t necessarily believe that verbatim, but the metaphor is endearing – the old gives birth to the new; without sacrifice, little survives.

O Wesir, you who sacrifice for others, teach me to sacrifice for myself.

My Epogomenal Days have started (I’m celebrating Wep Ronpet on August 5th). Today, I learned a bit more about this Netjer, and how I personally allow myself to “tweak” the gods to fit my own time and space in the universe. *UPG ahead, folks*

I’ve had a great experience with Heru-Wer. Traditionally, I’ve seen Him as the forces of victory, confidence, power, justice, and the sky. But today, I tried something new. I felt the “push” to see Him even more as the sky, as well as diplomacy, a uniter, ambition, and a clever and cunning planner/strategist/thinker. When He arrived in ritual, these were the feelings, thoughts, and wisdom that were shared. I think the role of “uniting/conquering with diplomacy, strategy, and peace” rings particularly true because this is what our society needs most right now (particularly with the systemic racism, unjust justice system, instances of police brutality, the murdering of police, and the general misunderstanding and fear of one another that occurs in general in society). So today, I came to see Heru-Wer as a force to be reckoned with, one of great brute strength and power, but also a Name who knows this type of conquering has a time and place. I came to see him as a Name of diplomacy, of talking it out, of listening, of understanding, of using wisdom and enlightenment to forward peace and unity. I came to know him as a Name of solidarity, of fraternity, of harmony. I came to know him as a Name of confidence, ambition, will, and discipline. I came to know him as the Uniter of Lands.

Heru-Wer is without a doubt a strong and fierce warrior, but his strength is not limited to the battle ax or the chariot or the sword. If anything, I think I’ve come upon the conception of this King as one who saves these things for when they are needed and first relies upon his brain and words (and the brain and words of others) to pave the path to victory. We’ve already tried brute strength and violence to solve our problems. Sure, sometimes this is the answer…but I don’t think that’s the answer right now.

The sky is limitless, open, and rests above us all…no matter who or what we are, the same sky blankets us. Heru-Wer is the day time sky…the one we all rest beneath, the atmosphere that protects us all from solar flares, the sky that gives us breath and beauty alike – each of us, without exception. We share the earth, whether we want to or not.

I know this isn’t traditional, but I am also of the mind set that (1) the Netjeru can change over time; while the core of what they are remains stable, the fringe can morph…mainly because our understanding morphs. Heru-Wer is primarily a Netjer of victory, kingship, and power to me – a uniter of people. This core is the same, but the understanding has shifted. In ritual, when he comes to me, he is a strong and confident force, but it is tempered with eloquence, logic, and inspiration. (2) The Netjeru can bring us what we need. I feel, right now, in the US, we don’t need war or a great conquerer. We need understanding and boldness without fear. More than anything, we need to cast away our unhealthy relationships with power. (3) I don’t see the Netjeru as “big men and women in the sky” so much as they are forces in the universe/the universe itself. In ritual, they come to me as “people in the sky”, but I feel they are more than this, and that this perception is based on the capacity/attempt of my mind to grasp certain things. These forces speak to me in this manner during ritual – its how I connect to them. Because of the belief that the Netjeru are the forces of and the actual universe itself combined with the ways in which I perceive those forces, I feel free to allow these new, nontraditional associations to become incorporated into my path, especially when I feel they better serve to provide wisdom in our current situations.

Dua O Distant One, King of the Sky, Uniter of Lands! Here is the prayer I wrote during my rite today.

Distant Hawk with bright eyeswho feathers are mottled with cloud and windwho scales the heights of the airy dome above uswho rests beneath his mother, NutWhose wings cover the Earth, from horizon to horizon, and cast a mantle of blueand white over his fatherEldest of the Five, King of the Sky, You are victorious in all your battlesambitious and unstoppable, but peaceful enough to unit all peopleYour eyes are alight with glory and cunningwhat you will is done, Eternal VictorThe heights of your ambitions and ideas pierce the blue aboveYou bring together what was apartYou join all men in solidarity and seat them at the table of fraternity and peaceO Netjer of unmovable strength and powerWhose discipline and tenacity is a steady galewhose diplomacy is sweetwho fixates on goals and achievesI sing to you, O Distant One!Just King!I laud your praises, Heru-Wer,God of the Wild Blue Yonder,Lord of HeavenHe of Dappled PlummageUniter who brings society together

In order for there to be life, in order for there to be space on Earth for life to be, Nut, the sky, was ripped away from her husband Geb, the earth. She is held in place above us by her father and mother, Shu and Tefnut. But despite this, Nut struggles to get back to her husband; she struggles so hard that her mother is sometimes brought to tears.

Nut is the mother of the netjeru; of Ausir, Sutekh, Heru, Aset, and Nebhet. Because she was cursed by Re, she carried them long past her due date, suffering until Djehuty finally found a way to relieve her pain. Even then, her pain still wasn’t over; Sutekh himself was said to claw his way out of her.

Nut’s separation from Geb, and the pain that she subsequently felt due to it, is something that I think about every time I see the…

So, as someone who works with Aset, one of whose epithets is “Maker of Kings”, I share many sentiments within this article. I do feel that, as moderns, using the King/Pharaoh as a symbol for what any of us can be in reaching our potential is apt. As the King /Pharaoh was, at least according to what the state material would tell us, literally Ra/Heru on earth, so can we also be Ra/Heru on earth. The Netjeru are as much us as they are the world about us. For me, Aset is one who can help you to plunge the depths of your mind and development, discover your desires and demons and strengths and weaknesses, and mold you into the Pharaoh you can become.

As much as the King/Pharaoh was responsible for upholding Ma’at, so are we responsible for upholding Ma’at. The King/Pharaoh works through us; we can all become Kings/Pharaohs when we uphold Ma’at and strive for our potential (I’ve read that even the ancients eventually democratized the afterlife, allowing all people to access eternity after death. I think its an interesting idea to extent the other perks and responsibilities as well). This article focuses on social justice, but there are other aspects of Ma’at as well (well, in my version of Ma’at. YMMV, of course 😀 ). There is “personal Ma’at”, which is akin to learning to accept and understand your inner “demons” or “shadow”, learning your strengths and weaknesses, learning who you are, what you want to be, and how to get there, learning to be disciplined but also self-compassionate, and striving to be contented and “successful”, however you define those things. There is also “ecological Ma’at”, which entails doing your part to either help the environment/world you live in or avoid doing harm. I’m sure there are many other forms/versions of Ma’at…things that are “orderly” or most beneficial for all persons. But in any arena, while we usually aren’t entirely responsible for the outcome of whether Ma’at is established/upheld, we are connected enough to the world about us to have an influence.

In short, we can all “bloom”. We all affect the world around us. We are one way the gods can uphold Ma’at in this world, because the gods are within and around us. In a sense, as the Pharaoh was seen as a Netjer, so are we Netjeru.

I am very much reminded of part of St. Teresa of Avila’s poem, “Christ Has No Body”.

Christ has no body but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
Compassion on this world,
Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,
Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world.
Yours are the hands, yours are the feet,
Yours are the eyes, you are his body.
Christ has no body now but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
compassion on this world.
Christ has no body now on earth but yours.

I don’t think of it as “fortune telling”. I think of the Tarot as a magnificently complex set of symbols from which I randomly choose, creating therefrom a narrative which draws up my intuitive understanding of a situation or question and illuminates it in complex, interesting and often surprising ways. In a way, Tarot is like a Rorschach test, only with much richer set of available symbols and a long history of interpretation and lore.

Besides, it’s really, really cool. Tarot by candlelight, with a bit of incense? You won’t feel much witchier than that, short of dancing naked around a fire.

In the Atheist community, I see a lot of hyperfocus on rationality, and discounting of intuitive thinking (and of emotion, generally). What cannot be logically explained is often dismissed entirely, to a fault…

For whatever reason, I can’t reblog this, so I’ll put the link here and you can check it out.

Nimue Brown discusses briefly how the meanings we attribute to graves can send our biases to the past. An interesting thought experiment. What are your opinions? Is there credit to questioning the meanings we assign to objects found with bodies in graves and the inferences we make from them? Is it more relevant in some cultures (from which we have more information from the mouth of the culture itself via art or writing) than others?